As part of SES' proposed $3.1 billion purchase of Intelsat (see 2404300048), the two are asking the FCC Space Bureau to transfer all of Intelsat's FCC authorizations to SES. In a series of applications posted Friday, the two said the proposed deal would result in "a more dynamic multi-orbit satellite operator with the ability to offer innovative and enhanced services to commercial and U.S. Government customers," and greater competition as New SES "will be better positioned to vigorously compete" with legacy geostationary orbit operators and emerging low earth orbit players.

SpaceX's Falcon rockets are 80% reusable today, and the company hopes its Starship heavy rocket will reach 100% reusability, though that will take "extreme effort," CEO Elon Musk posted Thursday on X. He said the biggest reusability hurdle is the orbital return heat shield. The Space Shuttle's heat shield needed six months of refurbishment, "so was not reusable by any reasonable definition of the word," Musk said. "This will take a few kicks at the can to solve and requires building an entirely new supply chain for low-cost, high-volume and yet high-reliability heat shield tiles, but it can be done." SpaceX said this week the next Starship test launch could come June 5.

The FCC is proposing that it cap the probability that a satellite applicant suffers a debris-generating accidental explosion at less than 1 in 1,000 per satellite. Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said Wednesday that an orbital debris probability draft order had been circulated among the regular commissioners. "We can no longer afford to launch new satellites into our skies without being thoughtful about space sustainability," she said. The FCC said the 0.001 probability metric lines up with the federal government's orbital debris mitigation standard practices. It said the requirement would be phased in a year after Federal Register publication. The agency also is considering adoption of a 100 object-years metric -- the number of years each failed satellite remains in orbit, added across all the satellites -- for assessing the risk of derelict satellites in orbit from a constellation (see 2405240005).

Intuitive Machines hopes it can send its second lunar lander to the moon's surface sometime in Q4. In an FCC Space Bureau application posted Tuesday, it sought approval for that NOVA-C Lunar Lander mission. It would land at the moon's South Pole and carry out a variety of missions, including testing an LTE communications system on the moon. The company's first lunar lander mission, part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, was carried out in February.

The FCC is inexplicably inconsistent about conditions it places on satellite constellations, SpaceX representatives told the offices of the five agency commissioners, said a filing Friday in docket 18-313. SpaceX said that while the agency has put 100 object-year caps -- that's the number of years each failed satellite remains in orbit, added up across all the satellites -- on some constellations, it has not done so with Amazon's proposed 3,232-satelite Kuiper constellation. Nor has it required that Kuiper report cumulative object-years any failures represent, though it has required such reporting of some other constellations, SpaceX said. "Now that a greater number of operators are beginning to deploy their systems in earnest, the Commission must ensure that the Bureau applies Commission-level precedent consistently and avoids providing special treatment," SpaceX said.

Viasat's argument that assessing a satellite constellation's regulatory complexity should consider factors beyond altitude (see 2405170032) ignores that there is "a direct, physics-based relationship" between altitude and regulatory complexity issues, such as spectrum efficiency and complexity of orbital debris, SpaceX representatives told FCC Space Bureau staffers, according to a filing Friday in docket 24-85. A large system at a lower orbit can present much less complexity than a smaller, higher one, it said. It said the FCC repeatedly rejected constellation size as a good proxy for system complexity and the work burden on staff. "Using a proceeding to determine regulatory fees to reverse this long-standing policy, while rejecting an altitude-based proxy that directly aligns with system complexity, would be arbitrary and capricious," it said.

Pixxel Space Technologies anticipates launching its FFLY constellation of three low earth orbit earth-imaging satellites as part of an Oct. 1 SpaceX rideshare launch mission, the satellite imaging company said in an FCC Space Bureau application posted Friday.

Comments are due June 27, replies July 12, as the FCC Space Bureau seeks a refresh of the record on proposed orbital debris mitigation rules, said a notice for Tuesday's Federal Register. The bureau said it was seeking a refresh on such issues as whether to measure collision risks in the aggregate for a non-geostationary orbit constellation or on a per satellite basis and what factors would be relevant in conducting an aggregate risk analysis. It also seeks input on using a 100 object-years metric -- the number of years each failed satellite remains in orbit, added across all the satellites -- for assessing the risk of derelict satellites in orbit from a constellation. The rules came from a Further NPRM that was adopted in 2020 alongside the FCC's orbital debris order (see 2004230040). Comments are due in docket 22-271.

Viasat's Inmarsat is trying to make a bigger push into maritime connectivity as it unveiled its NexusWave service Monday. The connectivity offering ties together Inmarsat's Global Express low earth orbit Ka-band connectivity with coastal LTE service and, starting in 2025, ViaSat-3 geostationary orbit Ka-band service. Inmarsat Maritime President Ben Palmer said while maritime has often had to rely "on multiple, disjointed solutions ... NexusWave fulfills all of those demands."

SpaceX's supplemental coverage from space service (SCS) testing in the 1990-1995 MHz band is causing harmful interference to Omnispace's mobile satellite service (MSS) operations, according to Omnispace. In an FCC docket 23-65 filing posted Monday, Omnispace said co-channel emissions from SpaceX satellites are interfering with its MSS satellite receiver. It said SpaceX is operating outside its authorized parameters. "Enforcement is warranted," Omnispace said. It said medium earth orbit satellite and terrestrial antenna monitoring chronicled the interference, and showed it was due to SpaceX operations and not T-Mobile's terrestrial G-block base stations with downlink operations in the 1990-1995 MHz band. Omnispace said the interference was due to at most a pair of SpaceX test satellites, given the separation of the satellites in orbit. It said SpaceX's planned direct-to-device service at scale would cause aggregate interference hundreds of times greater, making the band unusable by other MSS operators over large swaths of the planet. Omnispace said that while SpaceX is authorized to conduct SCS testing at altitudes of 525-535 km, its observations show SpaceX doing such testing at 350-360 km. It said Space Force data also shows SpaceX operating at lower-than-authorized altitudes, which "cannot be dismissed as a mere oversight or a response to dynamic on orbit conditions." Omnispace has expressed concerns previously to the FCC about likely interference from SpaceX's SCS plans (see 2305190057). In a letter to Omnispace posted Monday in the docket, SpaceX said it was "extremely concerned" about public statements that it has empirical evidence of SpaceX interference. It asked that the evidence be put into the record. SpaceX also requested that Omnispace put into the public record evidence of service disruptions.